New Issue! Cholla Needles 114

 

Cover art by Bonnie Bostrom
New literature by:

John Dorroh

Judy K. Mosher

Edward L. Canavan

Arvilla Fee

David Chorlton

Marlene M. Tartaglione

Barry Kritzberg

Bonnie Bostrom

David Larsen

and J. Malcolm Garcia

Click here to purchase on-line ($8.00*)
*includes full color art by David Chorlton*

Available during the month of June at:

California Welcome Center
56711 29 Palms Hwy 

Yucca Valley, CA 92284

From Bonnie Bostrom:

Dear Rich,

Thought I would send comments on the writers in this volume.  I was very impressed.

John Dorroh:  His writing is fresh; the images are stunning and his voice is novel. He moves us into his perspective gently so we share his world.

Judy K. Mosher: i appreciate her obvious love of the natural world and how she creates intimate pictures of it.  Her take on being a crone resonates with me at a visceral level.

Edward l. Canavan: This suite of poems is like an avant garde play. The scenes pull you in, leave you changed. It is a very creative way to present poetry.

Arvilla Fee:  Her ability to take something commonplace and treat it as a rare commodity is fabulous.  The intricacy of her work is compelling and inspiring. I am a fan.

David Chorlton:  His poetry actually leaves me breathless.  The way he understands the processes of nature is unparalleled. He is, in my estimation, one of the finest poets alive today.

Marlene M. Tartaglione: What she does is mind-boggling.  The way she uses color in this collection is masterful.  She draws the reader in, holds us there, and does not let us go until we have surrendered to her vision.  So good.

Barry Kritzberg: His stories! Enchanting and a delight.  Loved his two poets encounters and then the  newspaper clippings in support...genius.

Bonnie Bostrom:  I'm just happy to be in the company of such talented writers.

David Larsen: I was totally charmed by this story.  It is a wonderful portrait of two men in conversation, inviting us into the cafe and letting us feel as though we are right there at the table with them.  Very strong images and great dialog.

J. Malcolm Garcia:  This work floored me.  I was there with the writer through the marvelous intertwining of times, places, people.  It shines a very bright light on a chapter of our history that was dark. It is heart breaking and heart warming.  Kudos.

r soos:  He consistently curates the finest writing by the most talented poets and writers he can find. Those of us privileged to be included, are grateful for his guidance and for giving us such a wonderful venue.

Love,

Bonnie

Book Review - The Trick of Singularity by Kurt Schauppner

The Trick of Singularity
By Kurt A. Schauppner
Reviewed by Greg Gilbert
Available at Raven's Bookstore
69225 29 Palms Highway, Twentynine Palms

 The discerning reader may question the neutrality of a reviewer who was an early editor of Kurt Schauppner’s book, particularly as the review is provided at the request of the author’s publisher and the dedication is to us both. My unbiased suggestion: purchase the book and judge for yourself. Meanwhile, here are my thoughts.

    The title, The Trick of Singularity, suggests a point of infinite density, a state of uniqueness, and a place where physical laws break down; all of which are rightly applied to Schauppner’s book. For example, the narration is presented in past tenses, a topsy-turvy chronology wherein the first two-thirds occur in the recent past and the final one-third in the not-so-recent past, two stories that meet at common point, a singularity named Nathan Lee.

The passage of time is a character throughout the story. In the beginning, Nathan Lee is old, and in the end, young. In both time frames, his proximity to the loss of a loved one is mitigated by his state of being at the “time.”  In the beginning, the protagonist is referred to as Mr. Lee, a formality that is  appropriate for his advanced years. In the book’s conclusion, earlier in Nathan Lee’s life, he is Nathan, a newsman, a member of a profession that’s on life support.

The first two-thirds of the book is set in  a senior center, a place where elders revert to grade school behaviors, where pharmaceuticals are dispensed like communion wafers, and where different rooms are aligned with the residents’ stages of decline. This is where we meet the curmudgeonly Mr. Lee and view the descending arc of his story prior to reading about his earlier ascending arc in the book’s final third.

 In the beginning, which is the conclusion, Mr. Lee’s roommate is The Duke, a solitary figure who is occasionally aware of his advancing dementia. When clear minded, he is wise and insightful, and when he is lost, he is unerringly sweet and described as “the largely safe and asexual and therefore much-loved Mr. Duke.” The person who views the Duke in this kindly manner is, “a faded beauty who reminded Mr. Lee of Margaret Dumont,” a staple in many Marx Brothers movies. Once identified as such, she  remains Margaret throughout the story, the reference to Dumont another iteration of time’s relentless passage.

The all-at-one-point subtheme applies also to race. Mr. Lee’s father’s father was Korean and his father’s mother Japanese while Mr. Lee’s mother was “pure German.” Though a blend of races is not unusual in today’s world, it is germane to the story. Mr. Lee thinks of himself as White, even as the tragicomic tone of the first two-thirds of the book is reminiscent of Yiddish humor due to the author’s knack for transforming misery into comedy, albeit, at times, a bit dark.

The worst days are 100^th birthday celebrations. Family members gather, staff members hang balloons and force hats and other bit of ephemera onto unwilling heads and into unwilling hands, a curiously-decorated cake is purchased from the local grocery store, a junior staff member from the local newspaper is summoned with camera, notepad and wide eyes to record the spectacle.

            A 100 year-old person, usually a woman because most men have the good sense not to live that long, is dragged out of her hospital bed, deposited into a wheelchair, wheeled into a dining room, placed in front of the cake and forced to wear a festive hat that will, at the end of the day, be thrown into the trash and begin it journey to a rapidly-overflowing landfill.

     Overall, the first two-thirds is more humorous than the final third of the book, and that feels right because age is often accompanied by a long view that cannot help but be amused at our shared human folly even as we suffer the pains of decline. The more serious tone of the last third involves a younger Nathan Lee whose unfolding life recalls for the reader how it all concludes in the first section. (No spoilers here.)  

    Young Nathan Lee is a photojournalist for a newspaper inherited by children who decide that “it would not be fun to run a newspaper,” a reference to Citizen Kane and yellow journalism. One day, Nathan photographs a dying man at the scene of an auto collision, and, as a result, suffers the resentment of the man’s loved ones, a story that parallels the decline of his newspaper and the failing health of his true love. Within the arcs of this section, Lee’s true love is “a joyfully zaftig man in the manner of Jackie Gleason or late in life Orson Welles,”  a largeness that anchors young Nathan while sending the book’s younger readers to their search engine of choice. 

    Nathan’s uniqueness is a point where societal norms break down. He is a multiracial man in a profession that, like his true love, is both candid and dying. He is a gay man in a community that views such as an abomination. A neighbor who has made cookies for her grandchild’s church school bake sale has asked him not to attend because, “Oh, well, it’s at our church school and most of those folks are a little more conservative…” even though “everyone knew how neat and clean gay people were.” Though never didactic, this is a book that contextualizes the lives of its characters within the cultural and political milieu of modern life.

    What Kurt Schauppner has provided is a playwright’s novel, a book rich in stage direction, conflicts, and memorable characters. The trick is that the youthful Nathan Lee we meet in the book’s conclusion has yet to become the elder Mr. Lee who we  come to know at the beginning of the book. Thus, the final trick of singularity is achieved within the reader, a point where Mr. Lee, young Nathan, and our own mortality become entangled.  

    A final note: The Trick of Singularity was written and published within our community and, thus, is not the polished gem that multiple editors and publishing teams have scrubbed for a mass market. There is the occasional editing oversight, but this is a substantive and intelligent story by an author of several books, an editor of our local paper, and a neighbor. There are talented authors throughout our high desert and a remarkable little indie publisher, Cholla Needles. When we support them with our patronage, we enrich our sense of community. The Trick of Singularity is a worthy addition to our local canon.

 

 

New Issue! Cholla Needles 113

 

New literature by
Caryn Davidson
Rufus Wright
Arvilla Fee
Joseph Hutchison
Patty Prewitt
James A. Mehrle
Maía
Zaqary Fekete
Beate Sigriddaughter
Michael McGuire
and J. Malcolm Garcia

Click here to purchase on-line ($6.00)

Available during the month of May at:

California Welcome Center
56711 29 Palms Hwy 

Yucca Valley, CA 92284

REVIEW ONE BY M a í a:

Dear Writers: Response to Cholla Needles 113­­­­­­

After fully taking in this bold collage of word-built worlds, it felt impossible for me to respond—in words. Though all along, of course, I was responding–bodily and feelingly, to resonant and unlikely juxtapositions of color, weather, landscape and beings…­­­­­­­­

Through each poem/story, I became aware of something underlying and unspoken: quantum-entanglements, invisibilities, inhabiting-spirits of chaotic cities and ravaged forests. Each section of poems or prose finds its own way to ground us in earth, wind, sky, fire—through heartbreak, war, forgetting...death.  “As if to prepare.../to sleep forever.” (Arvilla Fee)

 I came to feel the writers here constituting a kind of tribe “wanting the faith/ to feel the word/not just find it” (Rufus Wright).  “ And suddenly there is sky, sky that knows (we) have waited a long, long time to feel small and infinite again,” (Patty Prewitt).

It’s true that some of our wrong turns are unredeemable. “When you thought you could do better elsewhere, and you were mistaken.” (Beate Sigriddaughter)

In our separate desperate or tedious or curious lives we fear we might have failed to give our full attention to what truly calls. But sometimes strange consolations announce themselves, and we remember,: “our apologies travel... down stairwells and settle…   in other peoples’ dreams.” (Zaqary Fekete)

Heartbreak, war.  ”He recalls jungle patrols when he slept with an arm tied to a tree so he would not roll downhill... He showered once a month. He smelled like earth and moss and mildew.” (J. Malcolm Garcia)

Bewilderment. “Why are the streets and the plaza filled with people knocked to the ground, being kicked, being beaten?”  (Joseph Hutchison)

Still, somehow we long to gather and to sing, “In unity’s embrace, a world divine.” (James  A. Mehrle)  To invite one another.  “Wake up, my love, wake up, see, the day already dawns, the birds already sing, the moon already sets.” (Michael McGuire)

No guarantees, no absolutes. But sometimes—joy—.in the heart of unknowing. “Cycles appear in all the seasons…we too, revolve around an/implacable truth that remains implacably obscured.”         (Caryn Davidson)

**************

First and last, “All of these writers fill me with hope for the future.” Rich Soos

I agree.  Thanks and appreciation to each and every one of you,

-          M a í a

 From Rich - M a í a did such a great job of quoting from each of you on her page, I want to end this with these beautiful words from one of her poems in issue 113:

 This is sorrow, that we never praise

enough, never say deep enough,

the speech of love.

 . . .

 A way for loneliness

to touch Beauty. To see God.

Because in the end

 

how silent words are—

I mean the handful

we know each other by. (M a í a)

REVIEW TWO BY BEATE SIGRIDDAUGHTER:

Inspired by Maía's response to Cholla Needles 113, here's my list of lines that particularly grabbed me in all the fascinating work presented in this issue, with thanks to all of you for writing and to Rich for putting it all together:

 Caryn Davidson:

 the chorus

of voices wanting and needing to know

 

The way things come and go

and yet they still surprise us.

 

The wind is so strong it seems

to push the stars out of place.

 

 Rufus Wright

 learning

to ache for no reason

 

get wherever

before whatever is over

 

Arvilla Fee

 

wished she had the courage to pour herself

over the edge of a cliff

 

 Joseph Hutchison

 

kid made parentless, the lucky bastards

 

a blizzard of tweets, and his followers share each on without reading it

 

 Patty Prewitt

 

I believe in what lasts

without asking permission.

 

A thousand small freedoms

bloom where rules once lived.

 

I step out the gate like a comma finally freed from the sentence I never deserved.

 

grass still grows with its green obedience

  

James A. Mehrle

 

Your laughter will never leave my heart.

  

Maía

 

beyond

the garden wall of her mother-tongue

  

I give my consent—yes

 to love, and the dread of weapons—yes

 

 The Mower Man, he steals the seeds

 sells them back to us

 

 In every human happiness

a taste of elegy—what's here, already

vanishing—

 

 

Zaqary Fekete

 

I realized that in this building, none of us were entirely alone. Our failures leaked upward. Our music vibrated through the ceilings. Our apologies traveled down stairwells and settled in other people's sleep.

 

I refresh the page twice, in case something changes.

 

I wonder if the words I did not read are still waiting where I left them.

     Or if they have already gone quiet without me.

 

 

Michael McGuire

Walls meant a lot to people. Juan Antonio sometimes wondered what they were walling in.

    Or out.

 

J. Malcolm Garcia

Had they died in combat, I would have been allowed to make a story out of it. But they didn't.

He experienced a sense of disappointment, as if none of what he and his unit had done mattered.

Will skyscrapers devour the battlefields where so many died? 

 

New Book! Heartwood by Cynthia Anderson

 

Heartwood is Cynthia Anderson’s 14th poetry collection (200 pages). Other recent books include The Far Mountain (Wise Owl Publications, 2024), Arrival (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2023), and Full Circle (Cholla Needles Press, 2022). Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, the Touchstone Awards, and Best of the Net. Cynthia is co-editor of A Bird Black As the Sun: California Poets on Crows & Ravens. She has lived in California for over 40 years.

settling

the dust in me

desert rain

Click here to order Heartwood on-line ($8.00)

Review: Eternidades by Juan Ramón Jiménez / A. F. Moritz

Eternidades / Eternities (1916-1917)
Juan Ramón Jiménez
Translated by A. F. Moritz (2026)
The Bitter Oleander Press
4983 Tall Oaks Drive
Fayetteville, New York 13066-9776
ISBN‎ 979-8990822825 (330 pages, $28.00)

 

 In 3^rd year High School Spanish the class was given a wonderful prose poem to translate into English, with the directive to make sure the English could be easily read by an eight year old. That was well over 55 years ago, but the lessons still live close to my heart. The lines were magic and turning magical Spanish into magical English was great fun as well as interesting. The first line will give you the flavor – and don’t allow your browser to translate this for you, it’s important you read this aloud in the original Spanish:

Platero es un burro pequeño, peludo, suave; tan blando por fuera, que se diría todo de algodón, que no lleva huesos. Sólo los espejos de azabache de sus ojos son duros cual dos escarabajos de cristal negro.

You can see why the assignment was made, and why the students loved the challenge. The book is called Platero y yo by Juan Ramón Jiménez (1914). My next meeting with Jiménez was in a college English lit class, with a group of “translations” by W. S. Merwin. The work was flat, dry, and close to meaningless. Instead of seeking out the original work, as a student I trusted that the great W. S. Merwin had done his best to bring the poetry to life, and I set Jiménez aside and focused on other poets to investigate and study. Platero y yo was so magical that I simply assumed Jiménez had lost his desire to bring magical enchantment to the page.

Which brings us to this brand new translation of poetry by Jiménez by A. F. Moritz. The English is fervent and alive, and this printing includes the original language on the facing page. I am sorry I had neglected Jiménez for all these years, and I am very happy to be re-introduced to his power in my elder years.

I went back to my stored boxes of college papers and found the class assignments, and discovered that in the early 1950’s Merwin was what we now term a dictionary translator. Today Google translate does not do a great job, but does do a better job than Merwin did because Merwin had a very rudimentary knowledge of Spanish grammar, and was simply translating word by word from a dictionary instead of feeling by feeling from the heart. At that time Merwin was translating famous world poets for the major magazines from 7 different languages. I forgive my ignorant young self, and now know that it was foolish to not follow up and discover the brilliance of Jiménez in his original work.

Poem 69:

How I hate the me of yesterday!
How I’m sick and tired of tomorrow
in which I have to hate the me of today!

Oh what a heap of dried up flowers,
this whole life!

Sounds a bit depressing, but look close – self-realization – and watch how just a few pages later – 

from Poem 87:

I live free
in the center
of myself.

The entire volume is teaching me to focus not simply on Eternity, but on Eternities! The poems evolve and bring me to a fuller understanding of myself, and the ups and downs of self-realization. Thus, I can forgive the young man who did not investigate further, and be enthused to meet the work of A. F. Moritz and be thankful for this volume which has spent 30 days with me already, and is smiling as I plan to keep it close by for the next few years re-reading the journey Jiménez laid out for his readers.

from Poem 103:

Come, come to me, I want to give you life
with my memory, as I die!

And from Poem 137:

fed by the light with my memory,
alone and fresh in the air of life!

Click here to purchase on-line.

New Issue!! Cholla Needles Issue 112

 

Cover Art by Sarah Kaufman

Poetry by:

Patty Prewitt
Tobi Alfier
Juan Delgado
Arvilla Fee
Cynthia Anderson
Penelope Moffet
James Marvelle
Marlene M. Tartaglione
Royal Rhodes
Gary Metras
Mark Evans

and
Sarah Marie

Order On-Line $6.00

Available during the month of April at:
California Welcome Center
56711 29 Palms Hwy 

Yucca Valley, CA 92284

New Book! The Trick Of Singularity by Kurt A. Schauppner

 

Singularity is a context in which a small change can cause a large effect. A tree falling over can cause 4 trees to grow from one trunk. Another example is one man can dream and become a poet, a playwright, a novelist, a movie director, a beat reporter AND a newspaper editor all in one body.

Kurt A. Schauppner has written the novels Shards of Broken Glass, The First Book of Exile, and Ghosts of Ide County. He also has a book of short stories Songs Without Words, and has written the plays April, Feral Dogs, Unbroken Chain, The Memory Jar, and Mary’s Confession. He is also writer/director of the independent motion picture, Once Upon A Dirt Road. In his spare time, he edits The Desert Trail, the weekly newspaper for Twenty-Nine Palms, California.

Mary's Confession, Song Without Words,
and The Trick of Singularity

are all available locally at

Raven's Book Shoppe

69225 29 Palms Highway

Twentynine Palms CA 92277

Click here to purchase on-line ($8.00)